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German Wind Lobby Hails Policy, Utilities Uneasy
Vera Eckert, Reuters via PlanetArk
FRANKFURT – German wind power lobby BWE said on Monday support for renewable energy in the new coalition deal would unleash huge investments but conventional producers said they were disappointed the status quo was left unaltered.
BWE said that the unhindered expansion of wind power which accounts for the bulk of alternative energy also derived from solar, biomass, hydro and geothermical sources may attract investments of 110 billion euros by 2020-2030. “The ongoing expansion of renewable energy has been secured,” a spokesman for the Berlin-based group told Reuters. “The big energy utilities’ hopes of a return to a conservative policy have been shattered. Now they have to adjust and start investing more into modern, decentralized energy sources.”
The coalition agreement unveiled on Saturday reaffirmed earlier statements that existing renewable legislation will be left unchanged up until a mandatory review in 2008. The huge overall package paves the way for a grand coalition of Christian (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD enforced pledges to expand renewables to a share of at least 20 percent of the overall energy requirement by 2020 although the CDU had only wanted to commit itself to an already realistic rate of 12.5 percent by 2010. …
(15 November 2005)
Venezuela Sign Pacts to Double Oil Sales to China
Bloomberg
Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, will double oil sales to China after signing two contracts for crude and fuel oil.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA said in a press statement today that it will sell 100,000 barrels of crude oil for a year to China National Petroleum Corp. It will also sell 60,000 barrels a day of fuel oil for two years to the Chinese company, Petroleos de Venezuela said. This sale “continues fulfilling one of our strategic goals, which is the diversification of our market,” Petroleos de Venezuela Director Asdrubal Chavez said. Venezuela currently sells China about 80,000 barrels a day. …
China, where energy demand is soaring, can’t refine most of Venezuela’s crude due to its heavy metals and sulfur content.
(14 November 2005)
Avoid arctic drilling via energy efficiency
Gerald Ernst and Kevin Proescholdt, Capital Times (Wisc. US)
Now that the houses of Congress have made conflicting decisions on drilling for oil in the United States’ last great arctic wilderness, the issue goes to a conference committee to iron out. The Izaak Walton League of America – a national conservation group of hunters and anglers with equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents – does not support this drilling proposal.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska itself offers many reasons to oppose such a proposal, such as its spectacular wilderness, wildlife and other natural resource values. A great refuge like the Arctic should be last on the list of places to drill. But the league also believes that drilling should not happen without an equally aggressive program of national energy conservation. Without such measures, we will squander the refuge merely to extend our profligate and wasteful energy habits.
Conserving energy also reduces the pollution caused by energy use – and produces substantial public health benefits in the process. If you cut energy use, you simultaneously cut air pollution from not burning that fuel. Last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimated that every dollar invested in clean air returns five to seven dollars in benefits, mostly due to human health improvement. …
In the absence of a responsible and comprehensive program to improve energy efficiency and advance clean, renewable resources, Congress should reject any proposal to develop oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is simply time to walk away from measures that embrace the follies of our past, provide no lasting benefit for our future, and continue to compromise the health of our natural environment and all of us who depend upon it.
(14 November 2005)
Big Oil’s bottom line? No need to sacrifice
William Raspberry, Times-Union (US)
WASHINGTON — Oil profits “go up and down,” Exxon Mobil Chairman Lee Raymond told the Senate the other day, explaining why the oil giants’ huge post-Katrina profits were not profiteering. Thus the $32.8 billion in profits that America’s five biggest petroleum corporations reported for the July-September quarter were more like a natural occurrence — that darned “invisible hand”! — than a calculated effort to take advantage of a national emergency. Profits just “go up and down.”
But even the facile Raymond couldn’t explain why record profits and record gasoline prices just happened to occur at the same time. You know the sequence: Hurricane Katrina ravages the Gulf Coast, and a week later two other things hit: Gasoline prices reach an all-time-high average of $3.06 a gallon and Exxon Mobil became the first U.S company to rack up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales. (It wasn’t all Exxon, of course. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips also did very well.)
Here’s how Raymond explains it (and I pick on Raymond only because he says things so clearly): Katrina damaged important refineries, reducing their capacity. That naturally made it more expensive to meet demand, and so they had to raise prices. Chevron Chairman David O’Reilly put it more simply: “We had to respond to the market.”
But if prices were raised to cover additional costs, whence the record profits?
Well, Raymond had a secondary explanation: Charging $3 a gallon for gasoline reduced demand and helped to regulate the market. That’s why you didn’t see those long lines at gas stations. Reducing consumption also reduces reliance on oil imports, and, though he didn’t say it, probably reduces hydrocarbon emissions and slows global warming — all good stuff.
In other words, what you thought was profiteering was only Big Oil doing the world a favor. …
(14 November 2005)
Must be a busy time in the PR departments of the oil majors – this is not the type of coverage they want to see.-LJ
Shell is forcing us out of work, say UK forecourt owners
Terry Macalister, The Guardian
Hundreds of self-employed businessmen and women who manage Shell’s 600 petrol stations around Britain face losing their jobs under a radical shake-up of the network.
Managers have been told they must either quit their mainly single-forecourt operations and take on clusters of six, or leave the franchise. Shell claims the stations are selling more petrol but profits remain slim. The oil group’s move comes at a time when drivers are paying high prices for fuel but oil companies say this is due to increased crude prices and high fuel taxes rather than profiteering.
Some Shell station managers contacted the Guardian to say they were frustrated and saddened that they were in effect being forced out of their jobs by too onerous operating and financial conditions. “I was angry at the beginning and then upset but now I have just accepted I must take this on the chin. I wanted to stay and finish off my career with Shell but I can’t,” said 52-year-old Pam Martin. …
(15 November 2005)
Schwarzenegger urges world to depend less on oil
Governor suggests China invest in California’s clean technology
Carla Marinucci, SF Chronicle
Beijing — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged diplomats and business leaders at a joint U.S.-China energy conference today to forge ties that will reduce the world’s dependence on oil and increase energy efficiency.
The governor said the two nations are at a critical moment in history and must find new ways to produce and consume energy “to sustain our economies and our environment.” Schwarzenegger, on the second day of his trade mission to China, praised the Chinese for their progress toward greater energy efficiency and suggested they increase their trade relationships with California businesses that specialize in clean technologies.
The governor pulled a tiny silicon chip from his pocket, saying it was developed in Silicon Valley and manufactured in China. “This is the most efficient solar chip in the world … a symbol of unlimited potential that we can realize,” the governor said of the chip, produced by SunPower Corp. of Sunnyvale.
…Schwarzenegger, in addition to waving the solar chip as a prop during his speech, repeated an assessment he has made often during his two years as governor that California and nations such as China must look toward hydrogen technology as a way to clean their air. The governor said California is expected to have 40 million cars on its roads by 2020, and China will have 110 million.
“How will we power all of these cars? The answer will no longer be with oil. The solution is, and the future is, hydrogen fuel cars.”
(15 November 2005)
